PhD Dissertation Award for Operations Research in Telecommunications

Nominations are requested for the PhD Dissertation Award for Operations Research in Telecommunications. The award is funded by the INFORMS Technical Section on Telecommunications and recognizes outstanding achievements of young people in the field. The INFORMS Section on Telecommunications provides a forum in which researchers exchange experiences and ideas for innovative network planning, operation and management. From a methodological perspective, research reported by the membership uses a variety of optimization, simulation and stochastic models. The biggest strength of the INFORMS Telecommunications Section is its membership. It has an ideal representation from both industry and academia. Consequently, the group reflects both practical, as well as theoretical interests, thus making it a vibrant OR forum for application.

The Dissertation Award will be determined by a Dissertation Award Committee and will be based upon three aspects: recommendation by the nominee's thesis advisor, presentation of the thesis at the INFORMS Telecommunications Conference (March 7-10, 2004, Boca Raton, Florida, USA), and the written dissertation itself.

Instructions to Nominees:
Each nominee must first submit an extended abstract of the dissertation to the Seventh INFORMS Telecommunications Conference (abstract submission opens Sept. 1, 2003). The first line of the body of the abstract should contain the sentence, "This abstract is submitted in support of the INFORMS Telecommunications Dissertation Award." Those who are selected to compete for the award will receive notification in late January. Each selected nominee will then be asked to provide a recommendation from her/his thesis advisor and submit two copies of the dissertation to:

Kemal Altinkemer, INFORMS TST Chair
Krannert Graduate School of Management
Purdue University
Lafayette IN 47907

Each selected nominee must also present his/her paper to the Award Selection Committee at the conference. The exact schedule of presentations will be provided in the conference program, to appear in late January 2004 on the conference web site. The winner will be awarded $1000, to be presented at the conference.

The letter of recommendation by the dissertation advisor should include clear indication of the specific contribution(s) the dissertation has made in the use of quantitative methods and analytical or OR techniques in addressing existing and future problems recognized to be valuable to the field of telecommunications. The nominated dissertation must have been accepted by the academic PhD committee of the nominee no earlier than March 1, 2001. When submitting the recommendation and dissertation please include a cover letter that provides contact information for both the nominee and the dissertation advisor, name of the academic institution and department granting the PhD, and department acceptance date of the dissertation.